China's Ministry of Finance on Friday reported steady fiscal revenue growth and accelerating tax revenue in the first three quarters of the year, driven by the economy's ongoing momentum toward innovation and quality, with proactive fiscal spending prioritizing key public sectors and investing in people.
According to the ministry's data, the country's general public budget revenue reached 17.23 trillion yuan (about 2.58 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first three quarters, up 5.1 percent year on year.
Tax revenue in the first nine months totaled about 14.07 trillion yuan, up 6.1 percent year on year, with the growth rate also 0.8 percentage points higher than that in the first half of the year.
Among specific revenue items, value-added tax came in at about 5.54 trillion yuan, up 6 percent year on year, mainly driven by continued growth in industry and services and rising producer prices. Value-added tax and consumption tax on imported goods rose 12.7 percent.
In terms of fiscal expenditure, general public budget spending in the first three quarters amounted to about 21.02 trillion yuan, up 1 percent year on year, the data showed.
During the period, China's healthcare expenditure reached 1.69 trillion yuan, up 7.7 percent year on year, while spending on social security and employment totaled 3.67 trillion yuan, up 5.2 percent. These marked the two largest increases among major expenditure categories, underscoring the country's ongoing policy support for improving people's livelihoods.
Fiscal expenditure on education also rose 1.1 percent to 3.2 trillion yuan.
In the first three quarters, policy support including loan interest subsidies for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, equipment upgrades, service sector operators, and personal consumer loans, as well as special guarantee plans for private investment, helped generate over 28 trillion yuan in new credit across key sectors, up 3.1 percent year on year, benefiting a cumulative 8.36 million enterprises and 147 million person-times of residents, the ministry said.
"Over 1.8 trillion yuan in new working capital loans were issued within two months (since August), benefiting more than 500,000 micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, providing solid support for stabilizing operations and securing jobs," said Li Nan, deputy director general of the financial department of the Ministry of Finance.
China issued 3.5608 trillion yuan in new local government special-purpose bonds during the first three quarters, reaching 81 percent of the annual quota as issuance accelerated noticeably, according to the ministry.
"We gave priority to funding needs of ongoing and continued projects, improved coordination of funds and projects, and focused on infrastructure and livelihood projects in municipal and industrial parks, transportation, affordable housing and urban renewal, effectively leveraging the role of special bonds in improving livelihoods, promoting investment and strengthening weak links," said Zhao Zeyong, deputy director-general of the debt management department of the Ministry of Finance.
The ministry said it will front-load next year's new local government debt quota within 60 percent of the current year's limit in the fourth quarter to ensure bond issuance can kick off early in January next year.
Agricultural insurance premiums in China have exceeded 140 billion yuan this year, providing risk protection of about 4.4 trillion yuan to 105 million household-times of farming households, with total payouts surpassing 100 billion yuan, as full-cost and planting-income insurance policies for rice, wheat, corn and soybeans have been implemented nationwide, the figures showed.
China's fiscal revenue sees steady growth in Jan-Sept
